Speeding driver disagrees with ban

A ST Leonards man shook his head in disagreement yesterday when a magistrate stripped him of his driver’s licence for a year and fined him $300.

“What are you shaking your head for?” Magistrate Ann McGarvie said after sentencing Ian Flynn for driving at a dangerous speed.

Moments earlier Flynn had pleaded guilty to driving at 141km/h in a 70km/h zone on Murradoc Rd in St Leonard’s on October 22 last year.

He said he disagreed with the sentence.

“I don’t think it’s right because of the state I was in at the time,” he said.

“The speed was irrelevant to me at the time.”

The court was told Flynn, 50, had his decision-making impaired by a range of health factors on the day, particularly a “manic bipolar episode”.

He had stopped taking his bipolar medication at the time, the court was told.

Ms McGarvie noted the man had no prior convictions, but told him the minimum loss of licence for his offence was a year, and she had no discretion to reduce that aspect of his sentence.

“I could accept 75 (km/h) or maybe even 80 in a 70 zone but 140 is extraordinary,” the magistrate said.

“It’s double the zone, and so dangerous because you can’t stop in time if something unexpected happens.”